Chapter 11 #2
“Yeah.” Zenko pulled out a swab kit and a digital camera. “That’s him.”
“Wrap it up,” Noble ordered.
Zenko finished sliding the swabs into their protective casings and tucked them into his pack. By the time he straightened, the others were ready to go.
“Move out.”
They left the compound behind and picked up the pace toward the extraction point, with the location Roman had marked sitting almost directly in their path.
Whatever the other team had been looking for was less than half a klick from where Red Squadron was supposed to be picked up, which made ignoring it impossible.
Zenko still didn’t like the timing, the dead compound, or the fact another highly trained team had reached their target before them, but they had enough time left on the mission clock to find out what the dying terrorist had been protecting.
Zenko put his fist in the air, and the team stopped as one. Ahead of them were the ruins the dying terrorist had told Roman about, the location where the weapon cache was supposedly stored.
Grabbing a pair of night vision goggles from his pack, Zenko brought the ruin into focus and studied the terrain. He checked the left quadrant and almost moved on to the right when he noticed a faint metallic gleam. Zooming in further, he spotted a wooden door secured with a metal lock.
Touching Noble’s shoulder, Zenko pointed toward the ruin and the door before handing over his goggles. Noble stared through the lenses for a moment, then nodded. Zenko would lay odds on the weapons being behind that door.
Hands moving, Noble silently laid out his instructions using the signals the team had become proficient in over so many years of working together. They split into groups again, with Zenko and Noble heading around the right flank.
In silence, Zenko stalked the first guard. Clamping a hand over the man’s mouth, he drew his K-Bar across his neck. Silence was more important than the mess it caused.
Noble dropped the second guard in a similar style. Zenko turned toward the door with Saxon and Roman guarding their rear.
“Damn, combination lock and bar,” Noble muttered. “Where the fuck did they get a combination lock in this fucking shithole part of the world?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Open it.”
Saxon rifled in his pack, pulling out C4 and detonators.
“Sax, you don’t need that much.”
“But.”
“No.” Noble grabbed one of the blocks. “For fuck’s sake, that will blow the whole damn building.”
“No boom booms?” Saxon muttered as he went about attaching the C4 to the bar and the lock. “Asshole’s always ruining my fun.”
“I’ll give you fucking boom booms. Attach the damn things and get on with it.”
As soon as Saxon had attached the blocks to the lock and the bar, he shaped some extra and attached it to the hinges, apparently deciding it was better to have too much than too little. He motioned for the others to stand back, and once everyone was clear, he pressed the detonator.
Boom. Mud, rock, and flying debris battered Zenko as a wave of heat washed over him. The fireball flashed into the night, then quickly burned itself out, leaving behind a few smoldering boards and a huge gaping hole where the doorway had been.
“Jesus,” Noble cursed. “You took out half the wall, dumbass.”
Zenko smirked when Noble reached out to smack Saxon on the head. He entered the ruined room first, with the rest of the team following one by one. Roman swung around with his weapon up to cover the door while the others searched the building.
Zenko whistled softly. “How the hell are we to get this to the extraction point?”
“TOC, Eagle, are you reading me?” Noble clicked on his comms and waited for Max to respond.
“TOC, go ahead, Eagle.”
“Are you seeing this?” Noble slowly turned so his body camera could pick up all the boxes of weapons and ammo stored in the room. “There is enough hardware here to make our cage on base look like small potatoes.”
“Want me to contact JSOC?”
Zenko watched Noble pause for a couple of seconds. “We don’t know how this is connected to the terrorist threat that Shaun overheard. Do we really want to bring JSOC into this right now? Before we get the weapons back and logged?”
“How the hell do we get them back to the base?” Noble glanced toward Saxon as he finished counting. “How many do we have?”
“Six crates of M-16s and twenty crates of ammo,” Saxon told him. “All with US-Military paperwork. That’s not counting the RPGs in that last box.”
“How the fuck can so much go missing from inventory and nobody notice?” Zenko stated the obvious. “It’s not as if it’s one box that fell off the back of a truck somewhere. This is probably a whole shipment, maybe more.”
“Eagle.” Max’s voice interrupted the back-and-forth. “We have a CH-47F Chinook that just landed at Al Tabaqah, somewhat near your location. Give me five minutes until I check if we can send it out for you and your cargo.”
“Affirmative,” Noble responded.
Zenko tracked Noble’s pacing back and forth as he waited for TOC to come back with intel. There was something funny going on with Noble lately, and he would figure out what it was eventually. Noble was just… off somehow.
“Eagle, this is TOC.”
“Go ahead, TOC.”
“The Chinook will be heading to your location as soon as it’s refueled,” Max told Noble. “ETA sixty mikes.”
“Roger,” Noble confirmed the intel. “We’ll keep the lights on and the chow warm for the flight crew.”
Noble gave orders for Saxon and Roman to take watch outside before glancing at Zenko.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d come on this mission.”
“What do you mean?” Zenko kept watch at the window of the old ruin. “Why wouldn’t I want to go on the mission?”
“I thought with Shaun at the base…” Noble allowed his voice to trail off.
Zenko shrugged, refusing to give him anything more than that.
“It’s unusual for you to take such an… um… interest in someone.”
“Are you saying I have a commitment phobia, Boss?” Zenko’s eyes constantly moved, watching for any hint of movement or anything out of place. Not once did he turn to Noble. He could talk without looking, so no need to give the man any opportunity to read his facial expressions, too.
“Not at all,” Noble told him. “You’re different with him.”
“Different how?”
“Protective.” Noble’s mouth turned down, and Zenko knew exactly what he was thinking about. The length of the debrief Noble had put Shaun through had already earned him Zenko’s anger once. “You’ve never reacted to me about a guy like that before.”
“Maybe it’s just because I rescued him, that I pulled him from the cage and cut the ropes.” Zenko tramped down on the blast of fury that pulsed through his veins when he remembered how drawn and tired Shaun had looked after that meeting.
“See, you are doing it again.”